TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2018

On this day in history:

1776 - Common Sense by Thomas Paine was published. 1840 - The penny post, whereby mail was delivered at a standard charge rather than paid for by the recipient, began in Britain.

1852 - South Australia’s first lighthouse begins operation. 1861 - Florida seceded from the United States.

1863 - Prime Minister Gladstone opened the first section of the London Underground Railway system, from Paddington to Farringdon St.

1920 - The League of Nations ratified the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending World War I with Germany.

1920 - The League of Nations held its first meeting in Geneva.

1928 - Aviators Hood and Moncrieff disappear on their attempt to make the first trans-Tasman flight from Australia to New Zealand. 1928 - The Soviet Union ordered the exile of Leon Trotsky. 1946 - The first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly took place with 51 nations represented.

1957 - Harold Macmillan became prime minister of Britain, following the resignation Anthony Eden. 1968 - John Gorton is sworn in as Australian Prime Minister following the disappearance of Harold Holt.

1981 - In El Salvador, Marxist insurgents launched a “final offensive”.

1990 - Chinese Premier Li Peng ended martial law in Beijing after seven months. He said that crushing pro-democracy protests had saved China from “the abyss of misery.” 2003 - North Korea announced that it was withdrawing from the global nuclear arms control treaty and that it had no plans to develop nuclear weapons. 2012 - A bombing in Khyber Agency, Pakistan, kills at least 30 people and 78 others injured.

2013 - More than 100 people are killed and 270 injured in several bomb blasts in Pakistan.

2015 - A mass poisoning at a funeral in Mozambique involves beer that was deliberately contaminated with crocodile bile leaving at least 56 dead and nearly 200 hospitalised.